Rings and Gauntlets
How notions of power and heroism have changed in blockbuster franchises in the past twenty years.
“I wish the ring had never come to me.” - Frodo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
“And I. Am. Iron Man.” - Tony Stark/Iron Man, Avengers: Endgame
Over the past weeks, I’ve been doing a rewatch of The Lord of the Rings trilogy with some friends. Watching these movies, especially twenty years after their release, is seeing how different they are from the blockbuster movies filling cinemas today, especially when it comes to ideas of power and our role in fighting for a better world.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a massive success, and one likely never to be repeated no matter how many companies now want to take another bite at Middle-earth. Those involved with the making of those films have remarked that it felt like making the largest independent film of all time. Given license to make a trilogy, the trust of the studio heads at New Line Cinema, and a nascent Internet where a savvy producer could control their message rather than react to the latest dustup on social media, Peter Jackson was essentially given license to realize these movies as he saw fit. While it was obviously impossible to please every die-hard fan of the books1, Jackson had a clear vision for these movies, what they meant, and the themes they should explore.
2008 then became a tipping point where, with the arrival of Iron Man and The Dark Knight, superheroes became the dominant box office draw. Unlike novels with their firm conclusions, superheroes had decades of stories to pull from and characters that would never die or even change too much—making them attractive source material for studios eager to generate endless content.
While some expected The Dark Knight to be a game-changer due to its box office success and critical acclaim, it was ultimately Iron Man and the ensuing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that changed Hollywood. While The Dark Knight was firmly a post-9/11 parable about what it means to live with terrorism and the comforting lies people need to endure, Marvel offered easy escapism where roguish heroes learn a little humility and save the world.
But what does saving the world mean in Marvel’s universe, as opposed to that of Tolkien/Jackson? And what does the change say about us, the audience of this evolving vision?
How to Save the World
Lord of the Rings and Marvel’s “Infinity Saga” (which concluded with Avengers: Endgame in 2019) are vastly different. Placed side by side, they show a fascinating evolution about our collective concept of power.
The Lord of the Rings is a story of self-abnegation. It is a movie where power is frequently held up as a corrupting force. The entire journey is a mission to destroy power, not wield it. Even when it doesn’t concern The One Ring, characters consistently feel uneasy about proximity to power. Aragorn’s entire journey throughout the three films is growing from a nomadic ranger to the true king of Gondor—struggling all along to believe that he can realize his destiny without falling prey to the same weaknesses as his ancestor, Isildur.
Power, for the good guys that do have it, is frequently shown as a burden. Gandalf, especially in Fellowship of the Ring, is weary, a grandfather figure who doesn’t want to see the world ripped asunder by war but knows that they have to destroy the evil of The One Ring. Theoden is consistently wracked by grief and doubt, and his battle cry at Pelenor Fields is, “Death!” The characters in Lord of the Rings are well-aware of their mortality, their normalcy, and the call to meet extraordinary times. Moreover, when it comes to fight, everyone—from the descendant of the kings of Númenor to the most unremarkable of hobbits—is called to save the world.
And what happens when a normal person, Frodo Baggins, reaches the pivotal world-saving moment? He fails! But Frodo doesn’t fail because he is bad or weak. The One Ring—a talisman of power—has eaten away at him until there’s nothing left, and he refuses to part with it. It takes the interference of Gollum—another creature made monstrous by his obsession with the Ring’s power—to finally get the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. The spiraling descent of Gollum, Frodo, and Isildur many ages before work together to show us that absolute power cannot be wielded for good—no matter how innocent the original intent. The Ring was created as an instrument of control, and it does its job effectively. That is why Sauron’s weapon can never be used to defeat Sauron.
The best way to deal with this power is to destroy it, and even that comes at great cost to Frodo, who saves the world but not for himself. Frodo lives, but can no longer be a part of the world he saved.
Compare this to the Infinity Gauntlet, the metal glove that holds the six Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. If you equip the gauntlet with all six stones, you can do whatever you want with a snap of your fingers. Thanos (Marvel’s big bad guy) collects all six Stones and succeeds in randomly wiping out half of all life in the universe, which he believes will restore balance to the cosmos. The Avengers’ solution is to travel through time, collect the Stones ahead of Thanos, and bring them back to the present to undo his damage.
All of this culminates in a final battle with Thanos, as Marvel movies are wont to do. In the ensuing conflict, the Stones eventually end up with Iron Man/Tony Stark, who destroys Thanos and his army—but loses his life in the process.
I don’t want to rag on the MCU too hard, because I feel like for Tony Stark, this is a good conclusion to his character (one of the problems with these movies is that because the characters rarely exit, their shapeless arcs take on a soap opera quality). Tony spends his entire time at the MCU trying to find a way around the damage he’s caused and thinking that the answer is an ever-improving suit of armor—when really, the answer is to face the power of a great sacrifice. That’s a good character arc! The problem is that within the bounds of the MCU, the only way to fight power is with power.
In Lord of the Rings, there’s no place to stand idly by, because your life is at risk. It forces everyone—from battle-hardened soldiers to common folk with no training or skills—to join in the fight to protect Middle-earth, because there is simply no other choice. But in the climactic battle of Endgame, nearly every foot soldier has some form of superhuman ability—whether they’re sorcerers from Kamar-Taj or Wakandans with superior fighting skills and technology. Ned, Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s best friend from high school, is not showing up to save the day. To come and save the day in Endgame (and really most major battles in the MCU) you have to be extraordinary. We’re a long way from average New Yorkers throwing trash at Green Goblin.
At the Council of Elrond in Fellowship of the Ring, Boromir says, “Let us use the weapon of the enemy against him!” The rest of the trilogy is then given over to demonstrating why such a thing would be impossible, because no one holding power is unaffected by it. Yet in Endgame, this is the idea that saves the day. Marvel’s heroes pick up Boromir’s line of thinking, dust off any moral complexity behind it, and use it to save the world.
This is of a piece with the larger morality of the MCU, which is that power is not bad or corruptive; it just matters who has it. This is why so many MCU movies are about the hero facing off against a dark mirror version of himself (Iron Man fights Iron Monger, Captain America fights Red Skull, Ant-Man fights Yellowjacket, Black Panther fights Killmonger, etc.). For the MCU, power is a value-neutral tool, and all that matters is making sure that power is placed in the “right hands.” Any attempt to address what “right hands” means (Captain America: Civil War) is brushed aside and never raised again.
So while Tony Stark does have to sacrifice himself, using the enemy’s weapon against him is never questioned. Power can only be bad if bad people use it, but the Avengers are the good guys, so we can trust them.
What to Do with the Time That is Given to Us
A cynical read on the MCU is that we live in the era of might-makes-right, and that the individuality at the core of these MCU stories is a uniquely American vision as opposed to the idealism of an Englishman who lived through two World Wars and a team of polite Kiwis who were able to fly under Hollywood’s radar. Also, in the fallout of 9/11 and its ensuing wars, there is comfort in the idea of have superpowered people coming to our aid. We know what our reality looks like, and it’s a pleasant thought that a billionaire will put on a suit of armor and save us or that an unthawed soldier from the mid-1940s will represent the best of American idealism and selflessness. We know it’s not true, but it’s also pleasant escapism in that someone else does the hard work for us (and apparently for free!)
Maybe that’s why of all the MCU movies, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films work the best for me—since, although the characters have superpowers, they’re also dysfunctional screw-ups suffering from deep loss and trauma who find redemption not in defeating someone who has the same powers, but from found family. The plot stakes of the first two Guardians movies may be saving the world, but the character stakes are these people realizing that they’re worthy of love and that they need each other.
However, a lot of MCU movies aren’t really about anything, or they’re about an arrogant guy who learns some humility by showing that he’s willing to give his life to save the world, but then doesn’t have to because he’s the stronger than the villain. Again, power is not something to be feared as long that power is wielded correctly in the right hands because the hands of the bad guys must be the wrong hands since they would throw the world into chaos. It’s a moral messiness that the MCU sidesteps because it rarely explores any idea too deeply.
While LOTR features its own simplistic evil, the question it poses to its heroes is far more human: “What will you, a normal person, do in times of great hardship?” And the answer it offers is to preserve and endure, not with a quip or well-timed punch, but through the strength of your emotions. When Gandalf falls in Fellowship during his battle with the fire-demon Balrog, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are full-on weeping, and Frodo is despondent. When half of all life gets snapped away in Infinity War, the immediate reaction at the beginning of Endgame is counterattack, and then the five years of grief the characters deal with is handled off screen. They probably wept, but there’s no time to show it. The closest we get to a real display of grief is Hulk throwing a bench after Black Widow’s demise.
I don’t want to say that LOTR is a perfect series that does everything right. It’s not great with female representation, and the treatment of orcs as racial other is even more troublesome. But watching the movies, I can’t help but be moved by how it works to speak to the viewer and the incredibly human concerns about how we face evil in the world. It’s still a fantasy setting and a kind of escapism of good vs. evil, but the larger emotional work feels honest. The Lord of the Rings refuses to give us a power fantasy. We’re reminded that even the great King of Gondor will one day die and the powerful wizards and elves will leave this world, and that’s okay. It says that even if you save the world, not everything can go back to the way it was.
In Lord of the Rings, to be part of this world and fight for its betterment may mean you lose a piece of yourself along the way. But for Marvel, saving the world is a snap.
Tom Bombadil is bad and it’s good that the movies remove him.
It's why Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a classic that has survived decades while superhero films (intentionally) tend to be fungible throwaways with literally-forgettable plots.